Chimpanzees as “Legal Persons.” Do You Agree?

A 26-year old former circus chimp is fighting for its right to remain outside the cage and released into a Florida primate sanctuary against the New York High Courts. This groundbreaking case could indicate chimpanzees as “legal persons.” 

According to defending lawyer and Nonhuman Rights Project President Steven Wise, Tommy is an autonomous creature who spends time watching television and enjoying activities that he should freely have. However, local New York law advises that all pets and animals be caged in the state.

Wise said that the case will prove that chimpanzees are “legal persons,” but he made it clear that he was not fighting for Tommy’s human rights. Instead, he made it clear that he was fighting for “chimpanzee rights.”

It may sound like a joke to you, but studies really show that chimpanzees are closer to human behaviour and understanding. Wise is trying to establish the fact that chimpanzees also deserve special rights, and Tommy should be given his own autonomy in the manner he wants to live.

Many will think this is ridiculous, but I for one think that it isn’t totally bonkers. In reality, humans didn’t have to restrict nature to have himself dominate the entire world. He should have left nature alone, have only taken what he could from his surroundings and let the rest live as free as they should be.

But for now, we have this system, and most animals are decimated because of this human system.

 

Three Easy Ways to Avoid Legal Troubles when Working

All problems start when one person’s freedom pushes against another person, denying him or her rights given naturally to any born citizen of a country. At work, the stress and tension makes thinking a bit less and acting a bit more, which can cause legal trouble. Here are three simple ways you could avoid it, based on my experience.

1.    Avoid the Social Flame

I was once working at a postal card creation service somewhere in 2009. A fellow employee, who was often rowdy, was fired mysteriously and the bosses never did explain what happened. In a formal statement, the bosses said that the employee was fired because of insubordination by posting about flames in social media. While many complained, a legal representative explained that going through the proper channels of complaints and not broadcasting the complaint openly in the web can stop the improper termination of contracts while having a say.

2.    Consider Yourself a Publisher

I often do an exercise where I think of myself as a celebrity. Aside from the vanity and ego, I also understood that each of my actions will have a significant backlash because of legalities. Today, social media, the internet and close-knit communities at work are areas where you publish your work. Obscene work could be considered propaganda in an office, so it is important to be careful about what one says, or rather in this context, publishes.

3.    Responsibilities

As stated in a contract, employees are bound by an amount of money, even if they are to stay in a company for a very long term. They have responsibilities that bind them with the contract, which they must fulfil or else they risk fighting off litigations and paying for penalties in breaking their contracts.

Should UK Be Next to Decriminalise Marijuana?

The United States had already approved the use of medical marijuana in their country and I couldn’t be happier enough for those living in Colorado and Washington. Maybe we in the UK should be next to decriminalise it, and for obvious reasons, the government will still want to keep marijuana in this country in check.

In the UK, marijuana is still classified as a class C type of drug. Anybody found possessing just a small ounce of cannabis could be pressed for fines, but not imprisonment. It seems that those supporting the anti-cannabis approval haven’t been properly informed.

Decriminalising marijuana also puts many things into an awkward position. Why would dangerous substances, such as alcohol and tobacco, be easier to approve than a plant that has no preservatives and dangerous chemicals? Companies all over the world work with governments to create profit. Also, many parts of the world have land fertile for growing tobacco leaves. Marijuana is yet to be tax-mapped, but many are growing their own illegally.

If the government cannot earn anything out of marijuana yet and the stigma remains there, the UK is powerless to have a decriminalised marijuana industry. Stigmas are everything, and no politician is willing to touch upon the public’s sentiment that marijuana and other drugs are dangerous substances.

The Possible Extent of the Modern Slavery Bill

Home Secretary Theresa May had recently proposed a Modern Slavery bill, which would protect those abused by their employers, victims of human trafficking, and those forced to engage in criminal activities, and according to analysts, its benefits may materialize for some time this year. However, their media description is most likely the ideal, because I know the local police and courts of justice will have different implementations of these new laws.

According to a recent speech by the Queen of England, the UK’s new legal bill will protect victims from traffickers, especially those forced to engage in criminal activity. The new bill, she said, will have them compensation from any of the assets seized from their traffickers. She added that the new bill will further strengthen the punishments for human traffickers.

Drug formulation and cannabis growth is illegal in many parts of Europe, and the United Kingdom is one of them. However, some European countries allow the consumption of cannabis. Many organised crime rings make use of foreign migrants, including women and children, to work in production, and most of them end up being associates or collaborators to the scheme when they were really victims.

Any law or bill that protects those whose stories are not told properly, especially confused collaborators, is welcome for me in the United Kingdom. However, it is important that UK officials, both on the domestic and national scale, will live up to the promise of benefits and rights the law indicates.

UK Still Has Slavery, Also Has Laws to Fight It

Home Office Secretary Theresa May recently passed a Modern Slavery bill that will allow victims of slavery to seek compensation and reparations from their traffickers, or employers, especially those who had had them work illicitly in improper occupations. 

I can’t believe that our country still has slavery. Sure, there are human traffickers, who sell people, including children, to brothels, black market companies and other organisations, but what I’m talking about is localized slavery. Yes, your dear neighbour.

I had a neighbour once, and their family had a domestic helper named Tina. She was from Morocco as I recall. Every day, the family will leave, but Tina was locked up from behind the door. She was told never to shout or cry for help outside. One time, I was walking beside her employer and she was following us. I could notice that she was malnourished.

I wanted to take it to authorities, but some colleagues said there was no law that protected domestic helpers. In the UK, it was always the citizen first, the migrants secondary, despite the fragrant words the world hears on television.

Maybe this law, along with other laws, will help these migrants, who came into the country to support their own families back in their country, have a right to the UK justice system. Nobody deserves to be treated like a slave, either through human trafficking or domestic imprisonment.

Clare’s Law and the Sanctity of Relationships

Now, before you think this is a “holy” type of post, I’d just like to clarify that sanctity in the title meant “honesty” or “values” in a relationship. I just want to point out here that the new Clare’s Law, or the Domestic Violence DisclosureScheme, while it protects individuals, it may also breed mistrust. 

I am all for the safety of our women and girls, but researching about the history of your partner, with his or her own knowledge, is a way of degrading the “honesty” and “genuine-ness” of relationships. Sure, it could be a romantic and less-than-practical notion, but why bother partnering up in a relationship if you could not even trust each other?

Potentially, the law can save lives, but is this law really necessary? Maybe it is, for people who look for partners in online dating and matchmaking websites. It will also be helpful especially in divorce cases, but the previous example is already an irony.

Definitely, it will really be nice to know that you have a good premise during divorce because you know that your partner has a violent history, but do you plan to get into a relationship just so you could get a divorce?

There is nothing wrong with Clare’s law, but intimate trust, understanding, patience and good values will always make a good relationship, not a back-end solution. There is nothing wrong with the law being passed, but if people use it to concern themselves of their partners, they were already planning to fail the relationship.

BMJ Report Accuses Several UK Medical Universities of Racism

A British Medical Journal report “Academic Performance of Ethnic Minority Candidates and Discrimination in the MRCGP Examinations Between 2010 and 2012: Analysis of Data,” claims that MRCGP examiners discriminate in the exams of Asian, Indian and Black doctors compared to white doctors. According to the authors, General Practice Professor Aneez Esmail and Biostatistics Professor Chris Roberts, medical universities have a bias when giving out their MRCGP examinations.

Today, the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) has filed a legal case against UK’s Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and the General Medical Council (GMC) for the MRCGP examinations biased against minority ethnic candidates. This legal case puts medical practitioners minorities in the UK on the spotlight.

Esmail and Roberts’  report showed that Black and minority ethnic graduates trained in the UK were likely to fail than their white UK counterparts in their first attempt at a clinical skills assessment exam. Black and minority ethnic candidates who trained abroad also had a greater likeliness to fail in the exam. The likeliest to fail are minority candidates who did not train or study in the United Kingdom.

According to the lawyer of BAPIO, Attorney William O’Neill, should BAPIO win the case, it will mean good quality medical graduates from universities regardless of ethnicity, which would give the NHS the boost it needs to provide quality medical service.

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